by Dan Mitchell | Dec 27, 2021 | Big Government, Blogs
It’s hard to be optimistic about Japan’s economic future, in large part because the burden of government is expanding thanks to an aging population and a tax-and-transfer entitlement system. Maintaining that approach is a recipe for ever-higher...
by Dan Mitchell | Nov 17, 2020 | Blogs, Economics
Japan is an interesting country to examine if you want insights about public policy. We can study the impact of population aging on fiscal outcomes. We can learn about the utter failure of Keynesian economics. We can understand why it’s a very bad idea to impose a...
by Dan Mitchell | Aug 10, 2020 | Big Government, Blogs, Government Spending
Compared to most of the world, Japan is a rich country. But it’s important to understand that Japan became rich when the burden of government was very small and there was no welfare state. Indeed, as recently as 1970, Japan’s fiscal policy was rated by Economic...
by Dan Mitchell | Feb 20, 2020 | Blogs, Taxation, VAT
Back in 2012, I warned that the value-added tax (a hidden version of a national sales tax) was enabling bad fiscal policy in Japan, in large part because politicians wouldn’t make much-needed entitlement reforms if they had the option of raising the VAT. Later that...
by Dan Mitchell | Nov 30, 2019 | Big Government, Blogs, Taxation, VAT
I wrote yesterday about Japan’s experience with the value-added tax, mostly to criticize the International Monetary Fund. The statist bureaucrats at the IMF are urging a big increase in Japan’s VAT even though the last increase was only imposed two months ago (in a...
